Does Thunderbird Work With Hotmail?

by Alan Sembera, Demand Media

Thunderbird allows you to manage several email accounts.

Adam Crowley/Valueline/Getty Images

Recent changes at Microsoft make it possible to add your Hotmail email address directly to Mozilla Thunderbird without the use of add-ons. When Microsoft shut down the Hotmail service in May 2013, it transferred Hotmail email addresses to the new Outlook.com server. The new server provides POP3 and SMTP support, which allows you to send and receive your Hotmail messages with Thunderbird.

Step 1

Launch Thunderbird and select "Create a New Account" from the main window.

Enter you name, Hotmail email address and Hotmail password into the setup window, and then click "Continue." Thunderbird will automatically look up Hotmail's server settings and configure the account to work with Thunderbird.

Step 4

Click "Done" to return to the main window. Thunderbird will automatically log in to your Hotmail account and begin downloading all the messages from your Hotmail inbox folder. Any messages saved in other Hotmail folders will not be retrieved. If you get an error message stating "The STAT command did not succeed," wait 15 minutes, and then Thunderbird will successfully log in and retrieve your messages. This error is caused by limitations on how often an email client can log in to Microsoft's POP3 server.

Tips

If you continue getting the "STAT command did not succeed" error message when Thunderbird attempts to check your messages, go to Thunderbird's main page and select "View Settings for This Account." Select "Server Settings" for the account, and change the "Check for New Messages …" frequency to at least 15 minutes.

If your Hotmail password is more than 16 characters long, you must to log in to Hotmail's website and shorten your password before you can use it with Thunderbird.

About the Author

Alan Sembera began writing for local newspapers in Texas and Louisiana. His professional career includes stints as a computer tech, information editor and income tax preparer. Sembera now writes full time about business and technology. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Texas A&M University.

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